Redemption
by Meowmers
Summary: Everything was falling apart and she wasn't sure what was building in its place. She only had the certainty that something was building. Something life-changing. "There is nothing on this earth that could keep me from you." He told her, a crazed sort of determination in his eyes. She met his gaze dead on and matched his tone when she replied, "Except me." (Damned Sequel) Tomione.


**Summary: (Damned Sequel) Everything was falling apart and she wasn** **'** **t sure what was building in its place. She only had the certainty that something was building, something big. Something life-changing. "There is nothing on this earth that could keep me from you." He told her, a crazed sort of determination in his eye. She met his eyes dead on and matched his tone when she replied, "Except me." Tomione. M-Rated.**

Something cold and heavy coiled around her stomach and settled in her abdomen like ice. Her fingers and her toes tingled with the desperation to move, to flee, to do something other than standing there and staring at him in shock. She curled her fingers tightly into Crookshanks fur, too tight, and he squirmed and twisted out of her arms and darted back into Mrs. McGonagall's house but Hermione still can't force her eyes away from his, standing less than five feet away and smiling like its the most natural thing in the world, like he has any right to be there at all.

"Goodness," McGonagall mutters with a huff, turning back into the house, presumably to get Crookshanks.

Tom didn't move. He slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers and stood there, one brow cocked, the corners of his lips turned up as if her terror amused him. He looked just like he did in her dreams, but more focused now that he was real. He was tall, thin, dressed in well fitted trousers and a pressed shirt not looking at all like he just crawled his way out from hell. It was in stark contrast to her pajama shorts, the sweatshirt she bought in the hospital shop, and her borrowed hospital slippers because she had stumbled out of the house with no shoes. She felt filthy, and exhausted, and she was certain she looked like it too. She looked more like she had crawled out of hell than he did.

She could feel his presence like a physical weight in the air. The space around her felt almost electrified, and she found herself battling the simultaneous urges to flee and to come closer, to give in to that irrefutable pull to him.

She curled her fingers into fists. She tried to discern what he wanted but he just stood there, staring at her, drinking her in. Neither of them moved for a long moment, and Hermione hadn't even realized her world had narrowed down to just the two of them until it was suddenly interrupted.

"So we uh—" Hermione snapped her head to the side to see one of the workers walking over, shaking a small container of things as he did. When he looked up he paused, staring between Hermione and Tom in awkward confusion. "Uh—we have…a few things, most of the stuff is smashed to shit but, uh, we're putting anything that isn't house rubble in here. Mostly broken picture frames and such but uh, we found some keys that seem to be in good shape—"

She made a beeline for the man with the box, reaching in the box without a word and digging through the contents—he was right, it was mostly useless, broken things—and found the small set of car keys and pulled them out.

She didn't look at Tom, just clutched the keys in her hand and went to move past him, but his hand caught her arm, the sleeve of her sweatshirt the only thing between his skin and hers. "Going somewhere?" He asked.

"Let go of me." She commanded, pulling her arm back, but his grip held firm.

"I understand you're angry," He said, his tone gentle, as if he had an ounce of gentleness in his body.

"Let go of my arm," She said again, through gritted teeth this time, turning her head to meet his gaze head on.

"Uh—Miss?" A voice interrupted. Tom cut his gaze from Hermione to the man who was still standing behind her, just on the other end of the divider. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine," She assured him curtly without turning around.

"Are you sure—"

She felt Tom's finger's curling tighter around her arm, and unwilling to risk his anger, she turned around and snapped, "I _said_ everything is _fine_ , return to your work, please."

Hesitantly, and looking a bit offended, the man turned around and headed back to the rubble of the house. It looked so strange to see, the two houses on either side that her house used to be connected to were entirely unharmed, but where her house once stood was now nothing but rubble.

She was already angry. She had been angry for so long it was hard to distinguish it from everything else, her anger winding itself around her fear and her sorrow and the brief moment of joy she felt when she hear Harry had survived. But now her anger was so fiercely overwhelming, staring at what was once her childhood home, thinking of the people who died and almost died, the people who were hurt.

"I think you and I should talk." Tom said from behind her, his fingers still curled around her arm.

And just as quickly as the anger grew, it faded. It broke, shattered and fell to her feet until nothing was left, just a numbness in her chest and a heavy weight on her shoulders. She was aware of very little else other than Tom's fingers on her arm and the sudden, disheartening certainty that she was going to die.

She brought this upon herself, she realized. She shouldn't have stolen that book, she shouldn't have opened the Ouija board, she shouldn't have even moved back to London. But whatever she realized in hindsight, she was still here, standing in front of her demolished home with the devil at her back.

She turned around. Tom watched her with dark, intense eyes. His presence was harder to bear in reality than it had been in dreams. She could feel him soaking into her, like these brief moments with him would mark her for far longer than he lingered. His fingers around her arm felt like a brand even through the fabric of her sweatshirt.

It felt wrong. It felt like she was corrupted by him, somehow, made worse by the knowledge that he had won.

Quietly, in the most hidden part of her mind, she decided that he couldn't win everything.

"Somewhere quiet." She finally agreed, and she watched the barely-there tilt of his head, the pleased softening of his eyes.

"Just the two of us," He agreed, "No interruptions."

"We should get out of London." She suggested.

He smiled. A soft and terrible thing, because she had never seen anything like that on him before. "I knew you would understand." He said, quietly, reverently.

She swallowed against the anger bubbling up her chest, forced away the waves, embraced the numbness because it was the only thing that made her feel like she wasn't making a mistake because it ensured she didn't feel much of anything at all. Then she walked past Tom, felt his fingers slide from her arm as he followed her to her car.

The workers, focused at the task at hand, didn't notice them leave. Hermione had no phone, no wallet, nothing to her name except the keys and the car she was about to die and the presence of the very reason she had reached this point to begin with. Tom slid into the passenger seat contentedly, made no move to put on his seatbelt, adjusted the seat so his long legs could stretch out in the space in front of him. He watched her as she started the car, pulled out onto the road and made her way to the highway.

"So what's the plan now?" She asked. The car was warm, and her adrenaline was pumping no matter how much she tried to calm down, so she pushed the sleeves of her sweatshirt off and curled her hands around the wheel.

"Plan?" He echoed, watching her for a moment before turning his attention to the world outside the car windows.

"Surely there's a plan," She said, "You didn't break out of your prison in hell for no reason."

"How can you possibly not understand by now?" He asked, but he didn't sound frustrated. Instead, he sounded calm, content, almost fond. "You're the reason."

"I don't accept that." She said curtly.

"Of course you don't," He continued in the same tone as before. Hermione merged onto the highway headed north. "What else would I return for? Certainly not for this festering cesspool of greed and hypocrisy you call humanity and the planet they're poisoning."

"Extinction." She offered.

"Please," He scoffed, "I couldn't be bothered."

"Then _what_?" She flexed her fingers around the steering wheel. The world around the road was beginning to shift from buildings and shops and houses to greenery and trees. "What do you want?"

"We've answered this," He reminded her, sounding bored.

"And we've discussed that I don't accept that." She reminded him, frustrated. "I'm human, too. I'm one of that festering cesspool you appear to hate so much." In the corner of her eye, she saw him turn away from the window to gaze upon her. "So are you, now."

"No."

"No?" She echoed. A driver in a red car sped around her, cutting in front of her and then in front of the semi to her left. She willed herself to keep her eyes on the road no matter how badly she wanted to watch his expressions.

"Not quite." He replied flippantly

"You're not human?" She clarified, "You look human." And before he could answer, she continued, "Can you bleed? Can you die?"

She glanced at him to see the corner of his lips had tilted upwards, amused. "Were you plotting my death?" He asked pleasantly. She didn't answer, but he didn't seem to be expecting one. The semi pulled in front of her, and she had to slam on the breaks to let them through. Frustrated, she pulled into the left lane and sped up to overtake it. "I can't die," He told her, "But I do bleed. I can feel pain and be injured just like humans, but I heal, and I don't die."

"You don't die." She echoed, dread pooling in her stomach.

"There's a reason they tried to lock me up instead." He said flippantly, and then distractedly he continued, "Only one person can kill me."

She glanced sharply over at him. "Who?"

He smiled again, that uncomfortably soft, fond smile. "I will tell you everything," He swore, and reached out to finger at one of the strands of her hair.

She jerked away on instinct, but that was a mistake. Immediately his smile disappeared, his eyebrows drawing together slightly as he regarded her with a sudden, terrifyingly close suspicion. Hermione gritted her teeth and refused to look away from the road. She pulled in front of the semi and took a deep breath.

"I thought you understood." He said quietly, and she could feel his eyes boring into the side of her face. She curled her fingers so tight around the wheel she fears it would snap under her grip. He played his hand on the shoulder of her seat, the other on the dashboard, leaning in close to her. "Hermione," He murmured, "What are you planning?"

She didn't answer. She swallowed around her sudden fear and refused to speak.

"You're making a mistake," He told her. "I could help you understand everything. Every question you have, I have answers to." He shifted in his seat, she heard his hand on her seat slide along the back as he leaned closer. "It makes no sense to act against me," He said quietly, "You won't get the answers without me. Who you are, who I am, your _parents_ —"

She flinched, and it was the mention of her parents that spurred her to speak, "You made me kill my best friend."

There was a moment of tense silence. "I could tell you things about your best friend that would make you glad he was dead."

Two things came over Hermione in a single moment.

The first was anger, of course, just as fierce and overwhelming as it had been at the house, only this time it remained. It was this that made her turn her eyes away from the road to stare, shocked and disgusted, at the man beside her.

The second was the realization that Tom didn't know that Harry wasn't dead.

He must've seen something in her eyes, something she didn't even know was there, something horribly angry or vengeful or murderous, because he immediately shifted to beseeching, an expression that looked so out of place on his face it was almost comical. He reached out. "Hermione—"

His fingers wrapped around her wrist and something happened.

It all seemed to play out like fragmented clips.

First something burst in her head. The pain that suddenly erupted, spreading from her head down her spine until her whole body ached, until she felt like she was seeping out through her skin, like her whole body was shaking, or like the world around her was. She might've seen Tom's shocked eyes for a moment before she couldn't see much of anything at all, or she might've imagined it.

Second, Her body seized up in pain. She slammed her foot down on the brake.

Third, the crunch of metal and the honking of a horn, the sound of the semi crushing the rear end of her car.

Fourth, the sudden feeling of weightlessness, the shattering of glass, it took her a moment too late to realize neither her nor Tom had seatbelts on, but then she hit the asphalt once, twice, three times until she hit the grass on the side of the road.

Fifth, she heard another crash, more metal crunching, glass breaking, but she was knelt on the grass, thinking over and over again I should be dead, I should be dead, I should be dead, wondering why the earth was still shaking until it felt like her head exploded again and pressed her forehead into the grass and _prayed_ for the feeling to stop.

The pain in her head ceased, but her body still felt on fire, the world still felt unsteady and it sounded like the wind was roaring in her ears. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees but her fingers were convulsing and twitching against her conscious will, her breath came in shallow, panicked breaths, she could see blood covering her arms where her sweatshirt was cut, she her a piece of glass embedded in her thigh, and she still couldn't figure out how the hell she was alive.

She glanced back. The semi had turned on its side, her car nothing more than a scrap of metal ahead. behind the semi was a pile up of cars, other cars had veered onto the side of the road. The sky was darker than she thought it had been, the wind blew her hair into her face so she could hardly see, her whole body felt like it was on fire. She reached down and yanked the glass out of her thigh and smothered her scream into the grass.

But she brought herself to her feet. She didn't know what had happened, what was still happening, why when his skin touched hers she reacted so violently, the only conscious thought she had was I need to run, over and over like a mantra, I need to run, I need to run, I need to—

She found the strength to pull herself to her feet, nearly collapsing on top of her injured thigh, and she stumbled past the tree line.

She lost her shoes, so she stumbled barefoot, cutting her feet on the roots on the ground. She feels too hot, like she's burning up inside, so she chucks her bloody sweatshirt off and leaves it, tripping over a root and then scrambling back up to her feet.

Something strange was building up inside of her, making her feel like she was bursting out of her skin. She felt like she was drowning, like she couldn't breath and every lungful of air only made her feel more suffocated, but at the same time she felt like she was on fire, like every inch of her skin was burning off of her body. She rubbed at the skin of her arms, of her throat, clawed at her shoulders. Her hip slipped something cold and firm and it wasn't until she hit the ground she realized it was a tombstone. She was in a cemetery, overgrown with plants and trees.

She couldn't get back up. She gritted her teeth, letting out a whine as she tried to stop herself from bursting into tears. Everything hurt, the wind was so loud—why was the wind so loud?—she dug her fingers into the dirt and let out a hoarse cry and heard a crack of thunder.

Cool hands held her face. Hermione opened her eyes, gasping, and blinked through tears. A pretty woman with white blonde hair held in tight, complicated braids stared down at her. She had flowers tucked into her braids and radishes hung from her ears like earrings.

"Oh my," She said, her voice high and whimsical in tone, she seemed to look anywhere but Hermione while still seeming to focus entirely on her, both at once, "You are surrounded by shadows. Don't you grow onions outside your home?"

Hermione passed out before she could even begin to think of a possible answer for that.

—

When Hermione woke up, her whole body ached. But the world was still and her head was clear, so she accepted the ache in her bones with a gratitude she couldn't express.

She was laid out on the couch in a cluttered living room, inundated with plants and mismatched furniture, a small television in the corner by the large window that overlooked an impressive garden. It was still daylight, and though Hermione hadn't the faintest idea where she was it felt warm in here, it felt safe and comfortable. She saw candles burning by the arm of the couch, and a patterned blanket was thrown over her. She pushed the blanket off, and when she did noticed there was something slimy on her arms.

"It's just lavender and peppermint," A voice said from behind the couch. Hermione hurriedly sat up and saw the blonde woman in the doorway of the living room, holding two mugs of tea. She was wearing flowy, mismatched articles of clothing. "It's a healing salve. You have cuts all over you. Were you attacked by sprites?"

Hermione hesitated, baffled. "My car was wrecked." She answers slowly.

"Ah," The mystery woman nodded, starting toward the couch with the mugs in hand. She seemed to glide across the floor, her skit fanning out around her calves as she did. "That makes more sense. Sprites don't usually attack people unless provoked. Normally they just like to chase the butterflies." She sat on the sofa beside Hermione's feet and held out one of the mugs. "Tea?"

"Um," Hermione faltered, "What kind?"

"Herbal," She answered vaguely, "My name is Luna, by the way."

The name seemed fitting, somehow. Hermione reached out and took the tea, taking a tentative sip. It tasted flowery, a bit sweet. "Um," Hermione started again, "You were saying?"

"Hm?" Luna looked up, "Oh, it's healing tea," Which really wasn't what Hermione was hoping for her to elaborate on. "It will lift the spirits and cleanse bad energy. Trust me," She said seriously, "You need cleansing. I burned a whole stick of sage while you were sleeping."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked outright.

"The shadows." Luna said, as if that explained everything.

" _What_."

"Drink your tea," She insisted.

"Wh— _no_." Hermione snapped, and Luna looked surprised, " _What_ are you talking about? What _shadows_? What the hell happened? Where _are_ we?"

Luna blinked once, then twice, then pursed her lips in confusion before finally speaking. "Well, you must know."

"No I do _not_ know," Hermione snapped, leaning over to set her tea on the table in front of the sofa, "And quite frankly I am tired of everyone insisting that I _should_ know because I _don't_ know _any_ of it."

"Oh," Luna said, and there was a very long silence after that. Luna looked pointedly at Hermione's tea on the table and Hermione begrudgingly picked the mug up and took another sip. It was rather nice tea. "Do you know that you're a witch?"

Hermione promptly choked on her tea.

"Oh _god_ —"

"I don't know how you could have gone your whole life without knowing," Luna said simply, "That was quite the storm."

"That's never happened before!" Hermione snapped, then paused, "What storm?" She asked.

"Well, it wasn't quite a storm," Luna said flippantly, taking a sip of her tea, "More like an earthquake. Second one this week."

Hermione lifted one hand form her mug to pinch the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Don't worry," Luna said, "No one else would have known it was you. No one else would have felt it at all, really, but I'm clairvoyant, so—"

"Oh my god," Hermione moaned, leaning forward to rest her forehead on her palm, careful not to spill her tea. "You must be joking." Luna took the tea fro her hand, set it on the table, and patter her head twice.

"No," She said, "I'm not. It would be an awful thing to joke about if I was."

"First the literal, genuine antichrist," Hermione muttered, "Now this."

A pause. "Well I don't know about the antichrist but—"

Hermione shot up. It was like everything suddenly and violently crashed back into her mind, the reality of it settling in so jarringly she couldn't bear to sit still. She shot up to her feet, "Luna," She said urgently, "I need—"

But she stopped. She had been ready to say she needed to go, to get as far away from anyone as she could. Tom was still out there, and she wasn't sure how easy she would be for him to find. She didn't want anyone else to die because of her, but as soon as she thought of that, she thought of Harry.

Tom didn't know Harry was alive. He couldn't know Harry was alive. She had to tell Harry to get the hell out of London.

"I need to borrow your phone." She finally said, and added, "Please."

"Of course," Luna nodded, and glided out of the room to retrieve it.

When Luna came back, Hermione frantically took the phone from her hands and dialed Harry's number, and Luna left the room again, wether to give or privacy or not Hermione wasn't sure. He didn't pick up, so she tried again.

It was on the third ring that he picked up. There was no greeting.

"Harry?" She called.

"…Hermione?" A tired voice answered.

"Oh, Harry, thank god—"

"It's not Harry."

Hermione paused, and then realized who the voice was. "Ron." She breathed.

"Yeah."

There was a brief moment of silence.

"Ron, listen to me—"

"Why the hell are you calling Harry's phone?"

"Because I need to speak to him—listen to me, Ron, something bad is happening—"

"You don't get to call us after what you did." He seethed, his voice breaking.

"Ron, this is important," She stressed, "I need you to tell Harry—"

"I'm not telling him shit."

"Tell him that _he's_ still here—"

"Fuck off, Hermione,"

"Ron wait," She said desperately, "Don't hang up, Ron—don't go near the house! Are you there? You need to get out of London. Ron?" There was silence. "Ron!"

She pulled away the phone from her ear and swore when she saw the call ended.

She tries to call again, but it goes straight to voicemail. She just barely restrains herself from chucking the phone across the room and screaming. She rubs at her arms, smearing off the stuff Luna had put on her cuts and smearing it off her neck as well, mostly just because she felt like she was crawling out of her skin. As she did, she felt something tied around her throat, and looking down she saw a crystal wrapped in wire hanging on a piece of twine around her neck. She went to rip it off.

"I wouldn't do that." Luna said from the doorway, and Hermione stopped. "It'll keep you safe. Balance all that negative energy in your aura." She was carrying an armful of things, clothes and books, "You need it. You'll attract all sorts of nasty things with your aura all black."

"Luna, I need to go."

"Oh, I figured." She said pleasantly, "I brought you clothes, and some things I think might help on your journey. You didn't have anything with you."

"Luna, you don't have to—"

"Yes I do." She insisted. "One can never muster up enough good karma."

She gave Hermione a pair of jeans and a light sweater, surprisingly demure clothing for the stuff that she wore. Luna was taller and more willowy than Hermione was, but the clothing fit well enough and it was better than the bloody, ripped, and dirty clothes she had on. Hermione was glad she didn't try to force a pair of reddish earrings on her or something. She leant her a pair of shoes as well, they were a bit big but had ties that Hermione could tie tight enough so that they didn't fall off.

"I think you might make use of this," Luna said, holding out a book. Hermione took it reluctantly and read the cover.

"Book of Shadows." She said quietly.

"Well," Luna shrugged, "I prefer to call them Books of light, now, but. I have three of them. I thought you might make more use of this one than I do lately."

Hermione looked at her for a moment. "A spell book."

"Yes." Luna nodded pleasantly.

"You're a witch?" She asked, taking the white tote bag Luna offered her and putting the book in.

"Not like you are," Luna said lightly, "Some people are just naturals."

Hermione didn't even know where to begin to form a response.

"Do you have a phone?" Luna asked. Hermione thought of the rubble of her house where her phone was probably smashed to smithereens and shook her head. "Oh," Luna said, and took the book out of Hermione's bag and pulled a pen out from her hair. "In case you ever get a phone," She began, scrawling something on the inside cover, "This is my number. I would like to hear from you, just to know you aren't eaten by shadows."

"What?"

"I can drive you to the station." She suggested.

"Luna," Hermione said, "You really don't have to do any of this—"

"Of course I do," Luna said rather fiercely, "Witches stick together.I've never been in a coven before, but maybe we could be, once you're more in tune with your magic. And when you cleanse your aura. I suggest radishes." She pointed to her earrings.

"I…" Hermione paused, taking in Luna's earnest expression. "I'm not a witch, Luna." Luna's expression didn't change. "I mean…I think I would have known if I was a witch before now, from what I understand its something you do…" She looked around Luna's house, at the multitude of plants and symbols and crystals and candles, "…consciously. I've never…I'm not a witch."

Luna pursed her lips.

Hermione didn't know what else to say. Whatever had happened when Luna found her, when Tom touched her…it wasn't her. It was him. It was something he had done. And truth be told, Hermione didn't have the luxury of questioning whether it had existed—the truth is Luna could tell her she had a pet unicorn and flew on her hippogriff to Iceland every Sunday and Hermione would have to take a moment to consider it—but to claim that she had any power inside of her was simple preposterous.

She didn't feel different, really. She felt tired and achy, Her skin buzzed but that was with the steady thrum of anxiety for her friends and for herself, knowing tom was out there somewhere, likely angry.

"If that's what you think." Luna finally agreed. Hermione gave a brief, self-deprecating laugh.

"I think I'm going insane."

Luna smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, "Don't worry Hermione," She said, "You're just as sane as I am. Would you like a radish for the road?"

Hermione laughed and shook her head. "No, Luna." She said, "Thank you."

Luna drove her to the train. Luna lived a few miles out from the Enfield train station, in a small part of land by the cemetery that you wouldn't know was so close to London. It took scarcely a minute to emerge from the unpaved road inundated with plants and trees from Luna's garden before they were on the streets of Enfield until they reached the station.

"Here you go," Luna chirped when she pulled to a stop by the station, holding out a small blue oyster card. Hermione looked from the card to her and back.

"You don't have one." Luna pointed out, "I grabbed it before we left. It should have about ten pounds on it, so you can get a train to wherever you're going."

"You're very kind, Luna." Hermione said. Luna smiled.

"Everything we do is brought back to us three-fold." She told her, "I just want good things in the future."

"Thank you." She said sincerely, taking the card, "I mean it, thank you, for everything."

"You can thank me by being part of my first coven one day."

Hermione bit her tongue so she didn't say something rude, something like 'I'm not a fucking witch,' and instead nodded.

Her plan was to get to the nearest branch of her bank and take money out. She didn't have her card, or her wallet at all, but she could give her security details to the bank in order to take money out so that she could get the hell out of London. She would try to reach Ron and Harry if she could, she wasn't sure how deep they were in this or if Tom would even target them if he knew Harry was alive, but Tom had said time and time again that he wanted her and she didn't trust him to leave them alone if he felt he could draw her to him through them.

She didn't know what she was doing. She hadn't had a moment to stop and think for more than five seconds about what her options were, but she feared if she slowed down and thought for even a moment she would turn around and he would be waiting for her.

She berated herself for a moment, briefly tempted by Tom's offer to tell her what the hell was going on before she steeled herself, assured herself that the last thing she needed to do was trust him when he had done nothing but torment her from the moment he entered her life. He made her kill her friend, it didn't matter if he knew what was going on, she wouldn't give him what he wanted.

She boarded the train with Luna's oyster card, sat uncomfortably on the train seat. She felt twitchy, unstable, her heart beat fast and she felt like she was on a constant adrenaline high. She felt anxious, jumpy, and still felt that irritating buzzing in her skin, like her whole body had fallen asleep and reawakened with pins and needles.

She shook her head. Had it really only been a few days that all of this had happened? Only a few days and her life was already in disarray, her house destroyed, one friend almost dead, the other furious with her. She crashed her car, her cat was still at McGonagall's house—shit, her _cat_ —everything was falling apart and she wasn't sure what was building in its place, she only had the certainty that something was building, something big, something life-changing.

The devil himself crawled his way out from the depths of hell and had decided that his purpose on this earth had something to do with her. And he had already shown he would kill anyone that he perceived as getting in the way of whatever he wanted with her.

She remembered Cormac. Suddenly the trains seemed too small, she kept imagining the train that hit Cormac, the way it would screech to a halt, the way he would disappear underneath, the shock of the passengers, of the people on the platform. She thought of the way he looked, bloodied and broken in her bed for that brief moment Tom and shown him to her.

Something welled in her throat. Something like panic, but it felt more physical than that, like something had really welled up inside of her and was choking her. Her whole body was shaking until—no, she realized, it wasn't her body that was shaking. The whole carriage on the train was shaking, she could see the panic on the other passenger's faces. Her breath came in quick and shallow, she couldn't calm down, that buzzing under her skin got worse and worse and worse and something was wrong with her, something was different since he touched her, she felt—

She got onto the floor. Her bag fell off her shoulder to the ground and something rolled out and when she looked she saw a radish rolling out of her bag until it bumped into a man's shoe. He didn't notice, too engrossed in the shaking of the train, gripping the bar like a lifeline, and it was so bizarre to her that Luna had slipped a radish in her bag that she just started laughing.

She shaking stopped. The train doors slid open and Hermione stumbled to her feet, choked laughter spilling out of her throat as she tripped over the gap between the train and the platform. The radish lay forgotten in the train as the doors slid shut and the train pulled away. Hermione didn't even know what station she was at yet, she hadn't paid attention, she just knew she needed to get off.

Something was wrong with her, she realized. Something was different, that buzzing in her skin wasn't like anxiety, it wasn't like adrenaline. She hadn't felt anything like it before, save for one moment in her dreams, her fingers curled into his shirt with his mouth against hers, that moment had felt just like—

It had felt like magic.

Startled, she reached into her bag and pulled out the book Luna had given her, hoping there might be something in there to help her control it, to help her understand it, to help with something. She couldn't trust herself not to lose her mind again and do something horrible like with the car wreck, but all that was in the book were potions and spells that required rituals and herbs and all things Hermione did not have. Frustrated, she chucked the book back in the bag, reached up and pulled that crystal from her neck and chuffed it onto the railway.

It was stupid and impulsive.

"I would've thrown it away, too." A voice interrupted her thoughts from behind her, and Hermione turned to meet the dark eyes of a tall, dark haired woman. "It was hideous."

She had a particularly different presence than Luna did, if people had discernible presences at all. Luna had just seemed very warm from the get go, trustworthy and kind. This woman was the opposite. She seemed shifty, dark and intimidating with a smile that had all sorts of unspoken promises. Hermione lifted her bag back onto her shoulder but remained in her position sitting on her knees on the floor. She watched her closely, and her suspicion only made the woman's smile grow into a grin.

"I'm Bella," She introduced, "And you're _Hermione_ , aren't you?"

She just couldn't catch a fucking break.

—

 **um**

 **ahhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

 **WHAT THE HONEST FUCK IDK**

 **HI ITS ME IM ACTUALLY** _ **NOT**_ **DEAD AND HERE I AM WRITING SHITTY THINGS AGAIN AHAHAHAHHAAHAHH WHAT TH EFUC K**

 **its been so long guys sO long i forgot how fucking intENSE it is to finish a chapter of something and get ready to post it holy shiT I'm freakING out what the FUCK Im watching judGE JUDY AND FREAKING OUT IvE BEEN WATCHING JUDGE JUDY WHILE WRIGIN HALF OF THIS CHAPTER WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING GOD DAMN IT**

 **fuck**

 **so here i am with this fucking sequel lmao *spongebob narrator voice*** _ **one year later**_

 **FUCK ME GUYS GODDAMN**

 **u all r so nice like a lot of u were so nice for so long like just! patiently asking for updates and mY DUMB LAME ASS WAS ALL 'oh yeah I'm gonna update real soon' and then two months later I'm like 'maybe this week' and then two months later my lYIN ASS IS LIK E'YEAH THIS WEEK'**

 **SO WOW….FUCK ME YALL DAMN**

 **i hope this isn't utter shIT because listen this bitch has not sat down and written a full thing in so fuckin long like this isn't just like 'oh i write a little bit every day' nah fam I HAVENT WRITTEN MORE THAN A PARAGRAHPH OR TWO AT A TIM EIN LIK EA YEAR AND I WROTE THIS ENTIRE THING TODAY**

 **FUCK ME**

 **ALSDKFNSLJDFBLWJEBFLSAJBDF**

 **anyway I'm so sorry. hopefully this is the start of more updates on a semi-regular schedule omGGGGGGG LET M EKNOW THAT UR STILL THERE AND U STILL CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS STORY. FUCK.**

 **(also i didnt proofread because im a piece of shit and i am a paNICKING PIECE OF SHIT Hahahahahaha WOW)**

 **(also im on tumblr my username is meowmerson so if u wanna gET FREAKY SOME TALK TO MEEEEE)**

 **(I dont know why i said that)**

 **(I will not get freaky with u)**

 **(I mean maybe)**

 **(i mean no i wont)**

 **(maybe)**


End file.
